My 10 year old clay bottom pond Muddy water, Mucky, Floating Green Slime, weeds , Algae , no fish, strictly oranmental with a fountain. I drained and and was give a price of 500 to bury it. The muck is 18 in deep on all the sides and bottom. its measures 120 ft long, 45 wide, and 18 feet deep. I can refill from lake huron or from a nearby muddy creek. The muddy water never settles to clear. Please give me suggestions, am tired of throwing chemicals and pond blue into this muddy s hole. Thanks
It really depends on your goals for the pond, I guess. If you're tired of dealing with it...then filling it in for $500 to make the pain go away isn't a terrible option.
If you want to keep it and see value in it, then since it's all drained down I'd remove the muck and fill it back up with water. You can put an aerator in it. That will most likely help your water clarity issue and will keep future muck buildups at bay.
I agree with the second option if you use the pond at all. 500 does sound cheap though? Where are they getting the material to fill it? Around here you would have 4 times that just in hauling dirt in. Aeration system would be close to that 500 and then you still have a pond.
I agree with what was said already. Aeration would help. I'd toss in some fish to help with mosquito larva control, but nothing that I'd have to manage. I'd get some nice marginal plants going (something that wouldn't get out of hand), plant a few different colored Hardy Lilies, then put in some FHM and maybe a few GSH, then toss in one or two LMB and a few BG (single sex BG and LMB to prevent a population explosion). I'd size the LMB so they were small enough so they wouldn't eat the BG. I would be 200% sure of the sex of the BG and LMB.
I'll bet the algae problem is coming from nutrient run-off from the lawn. I'd find a way to minimize that while the pond is still drained. If you can get enough plants established in the pond to utilize the nutrient loading, you shouldn't have to add any chemicals for algae. I would not refill from the creek, and even when filling from Lake Huron I would filter the water so you don't introduce any invasive species that might be in the water of Huron. I'm talking about plants/plant parts/seeds and/or larval mussels.
Unless I'm really off, a hole that size will require approximately 2000 cubic yards of fill, give or take some, depending on average depth and average length/width as you get near the bottom. Depending on the dump truck, most dumps will probably haul somewhere between 10 and 20 cubic yards of fill. That would be 100 to 200 dump truck loads. I doubt anybody could afford to fill that size hole for $500, unless they are being paid to remove dirt from somewhere else. I'd investigate very thoroughly.
I agree with the others. For a lot less, you can turn it into something beautiful. The others have made some good suggestions. People can also grow some pretty nice fish in a hole that size.
Ken
Last edited by catmandoo; 07/18/1106:56 PM. Reason: Corrected $50 to $500.
Anyone has tried silver carp as a solution for this case? Theoretically it works...
1)it eats plankton, algae and it helps water getting clarity; 2)somehow it helps to remove that muck. I don't know how do they do it but I know some successful cases. People even talk that they eat muck but I somehow don't believe in it. Probably they dig in the muck to search for food and it helps it to decompose.
If you decide to keep your pond, you may try this solution. You have nothing to lose anyway. I guess that silver carps are easy to get in USA (the only problem could be whether they are legal to keep in your state).
